"Then immediately afterwards, Rush Limbaugh and other hate-mongers began to fill the airwaves."
-- Al Gore

Former Senator and presidential candidate Al Gore could not have been more transparent when he uttered the words above in reference to the so-called Fairness Doctrine -- a blatant legislative attempt by Pelosi-liberals in Congress to SILENCE Rush Limbaugh and ALL of conservative talk radio!

But Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore aren't the only liberals who want to silence conservative talk radio. Senator James Inhofe recounted some time ago that he overheard Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer conspire to declare war on talk radio:

"They said we've got to do something about this. These are nothing but far right-wing extremists.... There's got to be a legislative fix for this..."

Fortunately for us and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Congressman Mike Pence is working to thwart attempts by the Pelosi-led Congress to impose the so-called Fairness Doctrine on the American people.

Specifically, Congressman Pence introduced and is working hard to pass the Broadcaster Freedom Act (HR 2905) -- a bill to prevent Pelosi and her liberal cohorts from silencing conservative voices and opinions on talk radio with which they happen to disagree.

But, Congressman Pence and other supporters of his bill now need our help!

Wouldn't you know... Nancy Pelosi refuses to allow the Broadcaster Freedom Act to come to the floor for a fair up-or-down vote.

In response, conservatives in Congress initiated a "discharge petition" -- an action that requires the signatures of a simple majority of the House of Representatives to FORCE a bill -- in this case, the Broadcaster Freedom Act -- to the floor for an up-or-down vote!

And, at this moment, 200 Members of Congress have signed the discharge petition. In other words, we are only 18 votes shy of forcing a vote on the Broadcaster Freedom Act.

Let's help Congressman Pence and other supporters of the First Amendment get those remaining signatures. Let's make our voices heard to ensure that Nancy Pelosi and her liberal allies in Congress don't silence conservative talk radio.

We only need 18 votes to FORCE a vote on the Broadcaster Freedom Act. Use the hyperlink below and help our conservative leaders in Congress get these votes by sending your urgent and personalized Blast Fax messages to President George W. Bush, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and each and every Member (Democrat and Republican) of the leadership of the House of Representatives.

Tell them Congressman Mike Pence's Broadcaster Freedom Act will thwart attempts by the Pelosi-led liberals in Congress to enact the so-called Fairness Doctrine.

The American people should be free to decide whether they want to listen to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham or many others. We do not live in the former Soviet Union and liberals in Congress have no right to decide what the American people should or should not hear!

Let's send a message to our elected leaders: They can either stand with Nancy Pelosi -- as she attempts to spit on the First Amendment -- or they can stand with the American people, sign the discharge petition and bring the Broadcaster Freedom Act to the floor for a fair up-or-down vote. The American people need to know which Members of Congress value the First Amendment!

Send My Blast Faxes Now

How Would The Fairness Doctrine Silence Rush And Sean And Laura And Many Others?

President George W. Bush probably said it best:

"By insisting on so-called balance, [liberals] want to silence those they don't agree with. They know they cannot prevail in the public debate of ideas."But don't take President Bush's word for it. Bill Ruder, John F. Kennedy's Assistant Secretary of Commerce, told us how they did it back in the good old days when liberals ran all three branches of government:

"Our massive strategy was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue."

The Fairness Doctrine would BRING THE MASSIVE WEIGHT OF GOVERNMENT TO BEAR on stations carrying Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Mark Levin or Laura Ingraham and FORCE them to provide equal time to an opposing viewpoint.

If you broadcast Rush Limbaugh for three hours, then you would be required to broadcast three hours of Al Franken or some other extreme lefty!

The trouble is, no one wants to listen to lefties on talk radio (left-wing opinions already saturate the airwaves on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN etc.).

Several years ago, Air America -- heavily funded by liberal ideologues -- saturated the airwaves with anti-American rants and raves.

Nobody listened. Pretty soon, Air America couldn't pay the janitor.

Pelosi, Clinton and Boxer KNOW that if they force stations to carry liberal propaganda, broadcasters will lose millions of dollars, since few people can stomach hours and hours of leftist bombast.

In other words, the Fairness Doctrine -- as Bill Ruder made perfectly clear -- isn't intended to provide balance. ITS PURPOSE IS TO FORCE TALK RADIO TO CEASE AND DESIST, TO SILENCE CONSERVATIVE DISSENT -- TO HUSH RUSH!

We only need 18 votes to FORCE a vote on the Broadcaster Freedom Act. Use the hyperlink below and help our conservative leaders in Congress get these votes by sending your urgent and personalized Blast Fax messages to President George W. Bush, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and each and every Member (Democrat and Republican) of the leadership of the House of Representatives.

Tell them Congressman Mike Pence's Broadcaster Freedom Act will thwart attempts by the Pelosi-led liberals in Congress to enact the so-called Fairness Doctrine. The American people should be free to decide whether they want to listen to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham or many others. We do not live in the former Soviet Union and liberals in Congress have no right to decide what the American people should or should not hear!

Let's send a message to our elected leaders: They can either stand with Nancy Pelosi -- as she attempts to spit on the First Amendment -- or they can stand with the American people, sign the discharge petition and bring the Broadcaster Freedom Act to the floor for a fair up-or-down vote. The American people need to know which Members of Congress value the First Amendment!


What Are Liberals Saying About The So-Called Fairness Doctrine?

Pelosi is so bold, she isn't even trying to hide her agenda. According to Martha Zoller, writing for the Business & Media Institute:

"The do-nothing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said last week that she supports reviving the Fairness Doctrine... When pressed further on whether she would allow the Broadcaster Freedom Act to repeal the Fairness Doctrine permanently, Pelosi said, ' No... the interest in my caucus is the reverse.'"

b]In other words, Pelosi is admitting that she wants to gag opposing viewpoints. And the statements of other liberals support that view. [/b]

When asked if she advocated the return of the Fairness Doctrine, Senator Dianne Feinstein told Chris Wallace of Fox News:

"Well, I'm looking at it, as a matter of fact, Chris, because I think there ought to be an opportunity to present the other side. And unfortunately, talk radio is overwhelmingly one way."

Senator John Kerry chimed in as well:

"I think the Fairness Doctrine ought to be there, and I also think equal time doctrine ought to come back. These are the people that wiped out... one of the most profound changes in the balance of the media is when the conservatives got rid of the equal time requirements and the result is that they have been able to squeeze down and squeeze out opinion of opposing views and I think its been a very important transition in the imbalance of our public eye."

(Note to John Kerry: Conservatives didn't get rid of equal time. President Ronald Reagan removed the gag so that a conservative opinion could actually be expressed on the airwaves.)

Senator Dick Durbin (you remember him... he's the man who once compared our troops to Nazis), the Majority Whip in the Senate, said:

"It's time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they're in a better position to make a decision."

To this, Philip Terzian, writing for Radio Free America, replied:

"Well, to be fair, it's a little more complicated than that; and with respect to Dick Durbin, there's another side to his story. .. "

"As often happens, this particular initiative had exactly the opposite effect from what the FCC intended. Over the years station owners grew so wary of attracting the scrutiny of federal regulators that they largely banned discussion of political issues on the air, and mandatory public service programming was deliberately anodyne.

"All that changed once the FCC dropped the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. A half-century of pent-up free speech was suddenly liberated, and talk radio came into its own.

"By just about any measure, the Fairness Doctrine was an unfair impediment to free speech, and a public disservice in an open democracy."

We only need 18 votes to FORCE a vote on the Broadcaster Freedom Act. Use the hyperlink below and help our conservative leaders in Congress get these votes by sending your urgent and personalized Blast Fax messages to President George W. Bush, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and each and every Member (Democrat and Republican) of the leadership of the House of Representatives.

Tell them Congressman Mike Pence's Broadcaster Freedom Act will thwart attempts by the Pelosi-led liberals in Congress to enact the so-called Fairness Doctrine. The American people should be free to decide whether they want to listen to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham or many others. We do not live in the former Soviet Union and liberals in Congress have no right to decide what the American people should or should not hear!

Let's send a message to our elected leaders: They can either stand with Nancy Pelosi -- as she attempts to spit on the First Amendment -- or they can stand with the American people, sign the discharge petition and bring the Broadcaster Freedom Act to the floor for a fair up-or-down vote. The American people need to know which Members of Congress value the First Amendment!

But Isn't It Really About Fairness?

Does Pelosi and Company REALLY believe in giving both sides of the political debate?

Let's take a look at Exhibit A.

For years, conservatives have complained about the leftist bias of PBS and NPR -- organizations supported by our hard-earned tax dollars.

Viewers have been bombarded with attacks on orthodox Christianity; fawning, idealized depictions of radical Islam (funded by the government of Saudi Arabia); shameless immorality disguised as art, and the nightly skewing of contemporary politics.

Every time the American people protested, the Left responded by thumbing its nose at us.

"Bias? We aren't biased. You're just paranoid. Shut up!"

Jeffrey A. Dvorkin, National Public Radio's Ombudsman, wrote a smug, smirking column in which he said that nobody can legitimately point to a liberal agenda in NPR's broadcasts.

"Some listeners say they know it is there, because they can hear it, even if they can't put a finger on it."

Media Research Center and Accuracy in Media -- experts in such matters -- "put their finger on it" every single day. Is Dvorkin terminally dense or just a rabid ideologue?

And that's what happens when the so-called Fairness Doctrine falls under left-wing management: Intellectual tyranny. The old double standard. We win, you lose.

America can't go there.

Right now, our airwaves are free. Let's keep them that way!


Yours In Freedom,


Jeff Mazzella
President
www.cfif.org


P.S. Please help us reach as many concerned Americans as possible by forwarding this e-mail to at least 10 of your friends and family members.


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Center for Individual Freedom
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